Polio 'will be eradicated'

Polio is expected to be eradicated globally by the end of the year despite a recent major outbreak of the paralysing disease in Africa, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said today.

The WHO's claim follows the resumption of vaccination campaigns in parts of northern Nigeria, where doubts over the vaccine's safety led to the suspension of immunisation last year, and the largest polio epidemic in recent years.

Vaccination campaigns resumed at the weekend in the Nigerian states of Kano and Kaduna, following efforts by health officials to tackle false rumours about the vaccine's safety.

The suspension of immunisation in the two states led to polio being exported to 10 other countries in central and western Africa, bringing the total number of infected countries on the continent to 22.

A spokesman for the WHO polio eradication programme said the recent epidemic in northern Nigeria was sparked by unfounded fears that the vaccine could affect female fertility. He said: "Among some communities there was a rumour that the vaccine was laced with anti-fertility agents."

This year Nigeria has reported 430 cases of polio, compared to just 58 across all of west and central Africa last year. Thirty of 37 states in the country are infected.

The WHO global polio eradication initiative said the outbreak "spread quite rampantly" to infections in Botswana, the Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Chad, Benin, Togo, Ghana, the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, which were all polio-free in the previous year.

A spokesman for the initiative said that it intends to carry out a huge synchronised national immunisation drive in all infected countries in October and November.

But he warned that the programme faces a funding shortfall of several hundred million dollars and some of these campaigns may not be able to take place without more donations.

Polio remains endemic in Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The WHO said that the governments of all these countries have reiterated their commitment to eradicate the virus by the end of the year.

Polio was endemic in more than 125 countries when the WHO polio eradication initiative was launched in 1988.